ThePossibles
THEMETEORSwere making the inanimate stars look silly when Bony and Constable Irwin were seated in the truck, smoking and talking.
“We have now the bodies of two men to occupy our attention,” Bony was saying. “We know that when alive both men were in the jeep, and that when murdered the jeep wasn’t where we examined it. One body is found on the east side of this Black Range, and the other on the west side, and you estimate the shorter distance between the bodies is approximately four miles.
“Although we didn’t examine the body of Jacky Musgrave, we saw enough to assume that he was also killed by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle. We looked for ground clues about the jeep and along the road, and failed to discover one. Before I found the dead horse, and when you and I went to it, I saw no human tracks, I’ve seen none about the well. Therefore, there is a lack of ground clues about both bodies.”
“What of the truck that came here recently from the cattle yards?” askedIrwin.
“That truck… it could have been a car… came here prior to the deaths ofStenhouse and his tracker. It stopped at the well and subsequently was driven round it to follow its own tracks back to the yard. It seems certain that one of theBreens came here to inspect the well, or the mill, but that was before the cattle began the trip to Wyndham.
“I’m sure that Jacky Musgrave wasn’t shot anywhere in the vicinity of that dead horse. He was brought there from the scene of the double murder, just asStenhouse and the jeep were brought from that same place.”
“That was a neat idea, pushing the body into a dead animal,” Irwin said. “Anyone passing would take no notice of the stink, believing it came from the horse.”
“I agree… a neat idea. It might have fooled even me had not Bob Lang’s father-by-initiation presented the idea. I wish I knew the extent of the knowledge of these murders in possession of those Musgrave aborigines.”
“Well, they know Jacky was shoved into the carcass of that horse.”
“Yes, they know that,” agreed Bony. “Someone witnessed that act, but as we can be sure the murder was not committed near the carcass, we may assume that the witness did not actually see the murder committed. He could have watched a man bring the body here. He could have been so far away as not to be able to identify the man.”
Bony tossed his cigarette end through the lowered window and reached for his tobacco tin and papers.
“I think we can be confident that he who witnessed Jacky Musgrave being put into the horse, or found him, was one of those Western blacks. He, with others, could have been over this side on walkabout. He would know what tribe Jacky belonged to, and would know Jacky was a police tracker by his boots and clothes. And so he made his way back to his own people to report the matter, and they sent up those smokes which they knew would be relayed to Pluto’s Mob, as thoseMusgraves are called.”
“So what?”Irwin said, tersely, when Bony fell silent.
“Although we don’t know the extent of the knowledge imparted to Pluto’s Mob, we do know the result of the news of this murder,” Bony further conceded. “If they know who murdered Jacky, they will hunt him out and even the score, and I shall be annoyed. If they don’t know, then they will have to start their investigation with the body of Jacky, as we had to start with the body ofStenhouse.”
“Then the game will be afoot.”
“Yes, we shall have rivals. We are interested particularly in who murderedStenhouse. They will be interested only in who killed Jacky Musgrave.”
The picture of uncivilized aborigines engaged in a homicide investigation was new to Constable Irwin, but he was not slow to recognize the seriousness of rivalry from this quite unexpected quarter; for his knowledge of the aborigines, especially those not in contact with white folk, was wide enough to include their rigid enforcement of black law.
As did Bony, he did not relish the thought of natives getting ahead in a hunt for the murderer, and for the first time on this tour with Inspector Bonaparte, he became impatient of progress.
“We’ll have to pull up our socks,” he said, and chuckled, and the placid Bony countered with:
“We can’t do anything in the dark. We had to rely on your two trackers, and they are not wholly reliable in view of Jacky Musgrave’s murder. Our investigation is not of a murder committed in a city area of a paltry square mile or so. We haven’t been called to a house where the walls are bespattered with blood and brains, and the blood-drained corpse lies upon the hearth-rug, the murder weapon near by.”
Irwin gazed moodily beyond the windscreen, watched a meteor blaze across the sky andappear to skim over the top of Black Range, and reluctantly agreed that the circumstances were not akin to the picture painted by Bony.
“We’ll scout in the morning, Irwin, and try to find how Jacky Musgrave turned into a horse. We must be as patient as Jacky’s tribe, and must exercise our minds as they will. If they come here to look around for Jacky, we must hope they won’t make the gross mistake of hunting us for murderers.”
“Why us?”
“Our boot tracks are well in evidence.”
“But,” swiftly objected Irwin, “they will know by the age of our tracks that we didn’t commit the murder.”
It was Bony’s turn to chuckle.
“Good for you,” he said. “In that little bout, you won. Now I’m for the blankets.”
Bony was up and had the billy on the fire when Irwin awoke at daybreak, and these twobushmen said not a word until they had sipped a pint of hot tea and smoked their first cigarette. Hard in the lee of this Black Range, the daylight was slow to come, and it would be three hours before the sun shone on Black Well. It was shining on the windmill when they returned from investigating the country all about the dead horse. Neither had crossed any human tracks. As the murderer must have used the magic carpet to transport the jeep to the place where it was found, so must the magic carpet have been used to transport the body of Jacky Musgrave.
Irwin was disappointed by the absence of results from their walking and searching for evidence to show, at least, from which direction the dead man had been brought to the carcass, and said their search would extend for weeks. He was also puzzled by the expression in Bony’s eyes and about his mouth.
“Who are the best trackers in this country?” Bony asked him, and without hesitation he voted for the aborigines.
“Precisely. And no white man can beat the aborigines in obliterating tracks. One: Jacky Musgrave was pushed into the skeleton of a horse by a white man accompanied by blacks who wiped out his tracks. Two: By blacks alone who left no trace of their activity. We haveproceeded a step. We know that a white man set the murder stage withStenhouse’s jeep, and we know that he was assisted by aborigines… black fellows he knew he could trust with his life. We know now why we have been thwarted so much.”
Irwin began to wash the utensils and pack them into the tucker-box. Looking up he said:
“We don’t seem able to get our hooks into this case.”
“We have begun to do so.”
“We have? Damned if I can see it. I can’t see whyStenhouse made those false entries in his diary, and I can’t even guess at the motive for murdering him…excepting hatred by theWallaces for what he did to his wife. What were you doing with that bush at the horse carcass?”
“Brushing out our tracks. I don’t want Jacky’s relations to know we discovered the body.”
“You’re sure, then, they will come here?”
“Quite sure.”
“And you are going to leave the corpse in that horse?”
“Yes… despite your very natural official objection to sidestepping a properly conducted post-mortem and a formal inquest. The one post-mortem and the one inquest on the body ofStenhouse will be sufficient. Now we’ll get along. Back to the yards and another call on Kimberley Breen.”
Irwin’s light-blue eyes were almost colourless in the dark tan of hisface, the smile mechanical as he lifted the tucker-box into the truck, swung the tins of water up and was ready.
“If we could read the truth in the biographies of great and successful men, Irwin,” Bony said, when they were on the move, “we would find one common denominator. Every great figure in history, from Genghis Khan to the Emperor Napoleon and down to the captains of modern industry, habitually used everyone with whom they came in contact. Friend and foe, intellectual and clod, the trusting and the suspicious… they used them all. We are not great. We are of those who are used, so let us now and then, in order to maintain our families, use up other people. We will begin with Jacky Musgrave’s relations.”
Irwin fell into introspective mood and tried to determine when Bony had used him. He was confident he had not been entirely used up by this man whose mind he could not follow, and decided that should he be used up he wouldn’t have any violent objection to the experience. This case seemed almost open and shut when he left Wyndham, and he was still easy about it when he had arrived at the dead policeman in the jeep. After that the cogs had slipped, and this damned half-caste had taken him through an ever-deepening fog. The fog was worse after Bony said:
“Don’t be downcast. I am decidedly elated.”
Irwin drove almost a mile before moodily protesting against the fog, and Bony relented.
“Our investigation has revealed that the man who killedStenhouse was white. The man who murdered Jacky Musgrave was that same white man. Lack of clues indicate that the aborigines were associated with these two murders. In view of the respective positions of the two bodies, the white murderer, having loyal black associates, can be included in threepossibles: Jack Wallace on the far side of this range; one of theBreens on this side; andAlverston who lives north of McDonald’s Stand. We will accept the threeBreens as one… leaving out the girl… so that we do have threepossibles… three men who could have loyal assistance from their stockmen. Have we not progressed?”
“We certainly have,” Irwin agreed, and because he was a little sore with himself, he laughed. “I think we could reduce the threepossibles by one. Alverston hasn’t been managing his place long enough to receive that amount of co-operation from his blacks.”
“Conceded, but keep in mind thatAlverston, with two aborigines, was travelling home from Agar’s Lagoon and met the party of photographers near McDonald’s Stand on that day when, in medical opinion, Stenhouse was killed. He could have metStenhouse, killed both him and his tracker, driven the bodies in the jeep into the scrub, gone on and so met the party from Wyndham. And that night he could have returned with his blacks to arrange the body ofStenhouse in the jeep as we found it. What type of man isAlverston?”
“Decent feller,” replied Irwin.“Came from the Territory three years ago. Was managing stations over there for his company. Well read, I should say. Kind of bloke I’d expect to make a better job of rigging a murder scene.”
“I agree. I metAlverston at Agar’s pub. We’ll delete his name, and leave twopossibles… Wallace and theBreens.”
“IfStenhouse was murdered up this way,” argued Irwin, “we know his jeep was driven over old man Lang’s donkey track, but we don’t know who was driving. Old Lang or one of his sons could have made the prints ofStenhouse’s boots in that temporary camp.”
“That could be so, but the idea is cancelled by the fact that theLangs told us about that track and gave us willing assistance to prove thatStenhouse’s jeep had been driven over it. No, Stenhouse wasn’t killed down south of Agar’s. He was killed within an easy day’s travel of where he was found. We’ll concentrate on thepossibles… Jack Wallace and one or more of theBreens.”